[tanknetter]

Recently I heard that the F8F Bearcat was undoubtedly the best plane. Grumman took apart a captured FW 190 and made it better. The Bearcat was a plane deisgned from scratch around a huge radial engine, rather than vice versa. It was smaller, faster and more agile than any of the above. It had a production speed of 455 mph, a rate of climb twice that of a Mustang, and a ceiling almost as high. Is was delviered to the Navy in the Pacific theatre, but the war ended before it saw action, or it would have made its own legend. A few years later a modifed version set the airspeed record for piston planes at 528+ mph.

The FW-190 angle is more legend than fact. The development of the F8F was already well underway when Leroy Grumman and his boys got to take a look at a captured -190.

It's more accurate to say that the Bearcat and -190 had a similar engineering (in principle, if not practice) ancestry in the 1920s and 1930s air-racers. Especially the Gee Bee. Take the largest possible engine (radial variety) and cram it into the smallest possible airframe.

Couple additional points about the F8F. Early versions had exploding wingtips ... by design. The engineers were so concerned about the G-stresses on the wings that they designed the outer tips to shear off (ok, not *quite* explode) at high g-loads lest the wing fall off.

The F8F was also the first USN fighter designed with cantilevered landing gear. This allowed a wide-track landing gear optimized for carrier operations while also allowing a VERY big propeller, without having to go the route of the inverted seagull wings of the F4U.

The FW-190 was later evolved into the superlative Ta-152 series. (The "Ta" was in honor of the FW-series' designer, Kurt Tank). Any discussion of the FW-190 series as the "best" (from a performance perspective, vice operational) should really start with the -152s.

Also, any discussion of "best" should definitely include a discussion of the Do-335 Arrow.

[AppyPappy]

Assuming common use in Europe.

The best Brit plane was probably the Typhoon/Tempest
The best German plane was the FW-190
Best American plane was the P-47
The best Russian plane was an IL-2.

[Plutarch]

The FW-190 was later evolved into the superlative Ta-152 series. (The "Ta" was in honor of the FW-series' designer, Kurt Tank). Any discussion of the FW-190 series as the "best" (from a performance perspective, vice operational) should really start with the -152s.

Interesting how the radial engine type cowl was retained with the inline engine. Was the radiator right upfront?